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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a straightforward pattern. It frequently acts as a kind of mea culpa. Sorry we underestimated your squad in our preseason forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who oversaw the most dramatic turnaround receives the prize. However, it fuels an yearly debate about preseason outlooks and whether we're truly rewarding excellent coaching or just the biggest surprise.

However the latest field is profoundly different. The group of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the year of comebacks. The NFL has been messy, with reigning conference winners fading and recent strugglers ascending in unison. Under an ordinary year, a coach leading the Denver Broncos to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. Yet in this wild and entertaining season, he's facing five other elite candidates.

Here is how the projected ballot could look.

5) The Chicago Bears Coach, His Team, Their Record

Voters for Coach of the Year selectors love signal-callers. History shows this. A certain coach in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. Should you solve a quarterback, you're well on your way to winning the award.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed Caleb Williams; he's unlocked him. Given a proper system, Williams has been afforded the opportunity to showcase his rare talent. From Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become increasingly decisive, far less reckless, and has eagerly submitted to the gameplan instead of going rogue. It is an offense designed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a heavy helping of play-action passes and a creative passing attack that springs wide receiver targets everywhere. The QB has thrived. And when openings weren't there, he's been capable to conjure big plays out of nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each bet – overhauling the offensive line, featuring the pass-catchers, turning the QB into a rhythm passer – has worked. That's rare for a first-year head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the building with the level of pressure he did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the most sought-after name on the head coaching market. However when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has lived up to expectations – and even exceeded them. He's proven not only to be a offensive dork but the type of culture builder that can inject fresh energy into an franchise.

In a typical year, Johnson would be the runaway choice. But this isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's candidacy comes a bit into trouble is on the defensive side. The Bears currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are living on turnovers, and takeaways are famously fickle. Coaches can focus on ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offensive production is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two victories worse off. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for long-term winning. But Johnson falls short here.

4) Liam Coen, His Team, 12-4

Coen is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has masterminded a swift turnaround. During the stretch run of the season, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the finest all-around ball of his career. And he's also spearheaded the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has mastered the leadership aspects, which wasn't a certainty after his early press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

The coach walked into Jacksonville with an exceptionally inexperienced coaching staff. Unlike Johnson, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching cocktail of youth and experience, Coen bet on newbies. Starting with the head coach himself to assistants to position coaches, the Jaguars are filled with first-timers. That kind of approach is intriguing in theory, but often fails in reality – with other teams are a warning – because everyone is learning a their job in real-time. But Coen has pulled the entire group and all elements into sync.

After an initial hot beginning, there was a chance that the season would veer off the rails. A midseason collapse had the team stumbling once more. That's typically when leaders panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Rather, he simplified things. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen recentered the attack around key players and the running game, and asked his QB to use his mobility more.

The results are evident. The Jags have won seven games in a row and will be the conference's No 3 playoff seed. Coen receives the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has demonstrated he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, 13-3

Each Coach of the Year argument has a pivotal moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback decision.

Parting ways from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an new play-caller could have derailed the season in October. Rather, it shaped it. By the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player contender. He has fallen away after that time, slipping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the second half of the season, placing him just one spot ahead of peers.

Still